Sweet Tooth in Kamakura

After a zen inspired day visiting the historic city of Kamakura and many of the temples in Japan, we stopped at a local neighborhood shop for an afternoon ocha (tea in Japanese) and dessert. I opted for the slightly sweet Gyokuro tea and an anmitsu for dessert.

Anmitsu is one of my favorite traditional Japanese desserts consisting of sliced fruits, agar jelly and azuki beans with a delicate sweet syrup. You will also often find vanilla or green tea ice cream added in making it a Cream Anmitsu. The name anmitsu derives from the Japanese word for azuki beans, "an" which is short for anko, and the "mitsu" means sweet syrup in Japanese.

Anmitsu is served at select local Japanese restaurants and cafes. If you don't anticipate hopping on a plane to Japan any time soon, and your local Japanese restaurant doesn't serve traditional sweets, you can experiment and try the following simple and healthy anmitsu recipe at home: